Nuttall, who is the party’s candidate at the upcoming Stoke by-election, published a statement apologising for the misleading claim that has now been deleted from his website, which had been “posted by a member of my staff”.

Radio City TalkNuttall was confronted with the claims on his website during a live radio broadcast

The MEP emphasised he attended the fateful FA Cup semi-final in 1989 and “watched the events of that day unfold with horror”.

The leader’s press secretary Lynda Roughley released a statement last night tendering her resignation. “It’s me who has made this mistake, and one I feel absolutely terrible about,” she wrote.

Banks made his intervention after Daily Mirror columnist Brian Reade, who was at Hillsborough and has campaigned for justice for the families amid more than two decades of cover-ups, questioned the legitimacy of the Ukip leader’s claims.

If Nuttall was at Hillsborough he clearly didn't learn its most powerful lesson: Every right-wing gobshite who lies about it gets found out

Banks - a multi-millionaire diamond mine-owning insurance tycoon who has bankrolled Ukip in the past and played a key role in Brexit - responded he was “sick to death of hearing about it”, arguing Hillsborough was “not some sort of cultural happening”.

I'm sick to death of hearing about it. It was a disaster and that's it, not some sort of cultural happening https://t.co/KTJPosOGDo

In response, Reade underlined the “27 years state cover-up”, and called him a “sad sad little man”.

In April last year, an inquest found the 96 Liverpool fans who died at Hillsborough were unlawfully killed.

The conclusions followed previous inquests in 1991, which recorded verdicts of accidental death. That ruling was later quashed after it was claimed that authorities had manipulated the timing of events to deflect blame from them and on to fans.

Last year, a jury ruled fan behaviour did not cause or contribute to the tragedy and the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed it was beginning the process of considering criminal charges.

But Banks described Britain’s worst sporting disaster as “an awful accident at a football ground, that’s it”.